You decide to do as the mysterious little paper says, because you don't really see any reason not to. It's not as if you expect to turn around and find someone or something just standing th-

“OooooooOOOOoooooooOOOoooo~!”

“Eek?!”

No sooner do you think you won't find something standing behind you, do you turn and find that something actually is standing behind you! A strange something, at that! A something that looks an awful like a large, lumpy pillow standing upright. Though rather silly looking, it's still surprising enough to cause you to jump back a little bit.

Just a little bit, though.

You quickly calm back down, and the more you look at it, the sillier the silly pillow-thing is. It's got a silly little face on it with a silly little mouth with a silly little tongue sticking out, like 'BLAH, I'M STICKING MY TONGUE OUT~!' and to top it all off you think you detect a faint whiff of magic coming from inside it.

“OOOOOooooooOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooOOOoooo~!”

The magical pillow monster waves its blobby little pillow arms in the air while making more 'OOoooOOOooOO~' sounds. You think it might be trying to sound scary, but it's actually kinda cute, like a little kitten hissing and acting all big even though it's so very, very tiny. The way those wings behind it keep flapping is also pretty cute, but why does a pillow have wings?

In any case, it doesn't seem dangerous, so why not try to talk to it for a little bit?

Oh. Huh. You guess it's a ghost, then. A kinda funny-looking ghost, but if it says it's a ghost you guess you should take its word for it. Even though it doesn't smell like a ghost. Or look all that much like one. And you can't see through it like you would expect to be able to from a ghost.

The funny pillow-ghost waggles its lumpy arms and flaps its little wings some more in what is apparently its best attempt to be scary. It's not doing a very good job, you think, but maybe you should play along? If nothing else, it certainly seems to be trying hard, and you don't think you'd like to make it feel bad. It's just too cute to make it feel sad. You almost want to just pick it up and squeeze it and take it home to cuddle with it.

Then again, this isn't getting you any closer to finding what happened to your shop, and that kinda makes you feel bad, too.

Try as you might to resist, you just can't help it. Your wish to find your missing shop has been suddenly replaced by the wish to hug and cuddle and squeeze the comfy-looking pillow-ghost in front of you.

“Awwwwwwwww~!”

“OoooOoowha-?!”

And so, you do. You throw yourself at the little ghostie, you wrap your arms around it in a biiiiiiiiiig hug, nearly sending the two of you flopping onto the ground in the process. Though it feels less like a ghost or even a pillow and more like a big piece of cloth with someone inside of it, it still feels pleasantly soft and squishy for some reason. A pillow would still be nicer, but you're not going to complain.

“W-w-wha?! What are you doing?! N-no! Please! Stop! Be scared! Please be scared! Please!”

The little ghost that was clearly not really a ghost whispers to you with a note of panic in its voice. Cute panic, but still panic. You pause briefly, relaxing your hold but not completely letting go.

“Please be scared! Please! I need you to be scared!”

As the not-ghost's desperately-whispered pleading continues, you find yourself feeling a number of things. You feel pity for the poor little not-ghost if it's been reduced to begging you to be afraid of it, but on the other hand that just makes you want to hug and cuddle it even more. But, more than either of those feelings, you felt something strange, yet very familiar. A funny, fuzzy, tingly feeling from the back of your neck to the top of your head that makes everywhere in-between feel all zap-zap-zappity.

Magic! Not very strong magic, but it's definitely there and getting closer. A fairy or something trying to be all sneaky and sneaking, maybe? Even if it is, you're pretty confident it's nothing you couldn't handle.

No, sneaky things that making your hair get all staticy is definitely not your biggest concern right now. Not when you've got this not-ghost wriggling and flailing in your arms. As nice as it would be to just go back to the hugging and cuddling, it's clearly not going to help calm it down any. Clearly, you need to do something different, but what?

As cute as the not-ghost's distress is, you can't ignore the fact that it is in distress, and that's certainly no good. After all, it's always best to be happy! And if you're able to do anything to help push this little not-a-ghost in that direction, then that's what you're going to do!

“U-uwha! Eeeek! A ghost!”

Letting go, you quickly hop away from the 'ghost' and do your very best to sound surprised and frightened by it. From the way it jolts as you do so, you guess the pillow-y specter is every bit as surprised by your sudden state of mock-terror. Fortunately, it doesn't take long for it to collect itself and pick up where it left off from before.

The two of you do this for a good couple of minutes, the 'ghost' waggling its funny arms and 'OoooOOoo'-ing and you cowering and 'Eeek'-ing. Out of the corner of your eye you see Sokrates batting at leaves in what you can only assume is his best attempt to ignore the two of you. That's okay, though. He's not much of an actor, anyway. Not that you are, either, but it's probably doubly hard to be convincing when all you can make are kitty noises.

And so, it remains just the two of you. The ghostie making her ghostie sounds, and you making your scaredy sounds. Back and forth, the exchange goes on and on, until you start to wonder just how much longer you have to keep doing this.

“Okay, okay! That's enough, rookie!”

“W-wah?!”

“Oow-WAH?!”

From out of nowhere, a little winged girl appears next to the two of you, eliciting a startled jump from both you and your pillow-esque companion. From her size, wings, and amount of static you could feel building up in your hair, you had little doubt that this girl was a fairy. What kind of fairy, you're not sure, but between the red of her hair and clothes and the little fang-looking tooth that was poking out from her mouth, your first guesses about her type would be either 'fire' or 'vampire'.

Then again, the fact that she wasn't currently burning everything in sight, and was not burning herself despite standing there in broad daylight makes you think that neither of those guesses are correct. It's just as well, since the notion of something as mischievous as a fairy that specialized in either one of the more destructive forces in nature, or in drinking the blood of the living was more than a little unnerving.

“U-uh, um, h-how did I, um, do?”

“Hmmm, I dunno...”

The winged girl folds her arms across her chest, and frowns a frown that is only frowned by people don't really frown all that much.

“Your execution needs work, and your target didn't look scared at all when you started, and then she hugged you-”

“B-but she got scared after that! Right?”

“I wonder about that. Hey, you!”

The fiery-looking fairy girl turns and points at you.

“Were you scared? Like, really, really scared?”

“Um, was I scared?”

“Yeah! Were you scared? And don't lie, because I can totally tell about that kind of stuff!”

>>183522I'm not dead. I feel like I'm dead but I'm not. Work has kept be busy and tired and in an ever-growing mood to hit someone in the face with a claw hammer. Now, just when things were finally getting at little bit stable, I'm sick and now I am feeling all kinds of bad.

Sorry for not saying anything before now.

No ETA on when things will resume, but I will try to make it as soon as I possibly can, but for right now I'm just going to go NyQuil myself into a coma.

They're nice and lovely and fun and it just feels so good to wrap your arms around someone who wraps their arms around you and you squeeeeeze and theysqueeeeeeeze.

Sometimes you forget things, but you would never forget how great a nice, comforting hug can feel!

That is, unless the thing that was hugging you happened to be a very large amount of dirt and mud and muck and, well, it's all just quite unpleasant!

The fact you can't remember how you ended up in this situation doesn't help matters for you very much, but you know enough about how these things go that you're not very surprised.

Sometimes you find yourself in a town or village that you don't recognize, even though a bunch of people know you by name. Other times you find yourself sitting in a comfy chair, drinking delicious tea, listening to someone you don't think you know laughing at a joke or story you don't remember telling. Other other times, you find yourself in another comfy chair, drinking another delicious cup of tea, listening to someone you don't think you know shouting things like 'who are you' and 'what are you doing in my house'.

Times like that are especially awkward and uncomfortable

And then, of course, you sometimes find yourself standing somewhere that most people would call 'the middle of nowhere', which always seemed funny to you, since everywhere was somewhere, and as long as you were somewhere you could never be nowhere!

Sometimes you would be in the woods. Sometimes you would be on a boat in the middle of the lake. Sometimes you would be on a boat in the middle of the woods, sometimes in a tree, but often on the ground, for reasons no living soul was apparently ever meant to understand.

And sometimes, just sometimes, you would be in a swamp, or bog, or marsh, or any of those other number of places with names that are as messy and gloopy-sounding as their names would suggest.

Lucky for you, you treated your clothing with special magic for just such an occasion, so despite all the muck and grime you were almost neck-deep in, your clothes felt as clean and dry as if they had just come off the line on a bright summer day.

Your hair, not so luckily, would be needing a very thorough wash after all of this.

...after you got out of all of this, that is, of course.

Which, now that you're thinking of it, is something you should maybe probably be doing something about.

[ ] Call for HELP

[ ] Call for CAT

[ ] Call for TEA

[ ] Try something else that may or may not involve calling for something

[x] Call for a mathematician. Weren't we on thread 35? -[x] No wait, the next one was 33.2 and the other was delta epsilon theta lambda or some other weird old number. --[x] WAIT THE LAST TWO THREADS TOOK 10 MONTHS TO FINISH WHAT THE FUCK ---[x] I FORGOT COMPLETELY THE PLOT WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON

Calling for help seems like it would be a rather good idea, you think. The question was, who?

Your dear little fluffykins kitty wouldn't be able to pull you out, though you have no doubts he would try his hardest like the sweet baby he was~!

That, or he would just sit there, staring at you, until his attention was drawn away by a bug or leaf that he just had to start batting at. That's just how cats are, though, so you wouldn't hold it against him.

There was someone who came to mind, though.

That cute little bunny you met, gosh, how long ago? Days? Weeks? A century or two? Time has a funny way of getting all mooshed together when you live, well...

The important thing is that you remember the bunny. She was so small and cute and fluffy, and Sokrates wanted to eat her. Or was that Aesop?

Was there an Aesop?

Anyway, there was the bunny, and she looked so cold and hungry, and even though you didn't really have much to spare at the time, you gave her a biscuit. Out last biscuit. Even though it wasn't much, she looked so happy, which made you happy, and so everyone was happy. Everyone except your cat, whose name you can't quite remember at the moment, who got all grumpy because he couldn't eat the bunny.

The little stinker.

In any case, the little bunny was so grateful, she wanted to give you something in return. Of course, being a little bunny, she didn't really have much of anything to offer, but she swore you would be remembered as a 'friend of rabbit-kind' and that if you ever needed something in the future, to call on her and she would 'totally hook you up'.

You don't know what she would be 'hooking you up' to, and you weren't really sure you liked the idea of being hooked up to anything, but she didn't seem like she meant it in a bad way, so you simply went along with it.

All you had to do, the bunny told you, was call out a certain name.

At least, you thought it was a name. You had to ask her to spell it out for you, just to be sure you had it right, but that didn't help you nearly as much as you thought it would. It didn't sound like there should be a 'w' in there at all, but you didn't press the matter. The bunny seemed to know more about it than you did, so it was hardly your place to question it.

“Um, Tewi?” you call out, unsure if anyone would even be able to hear you. “Tewi? Teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii~?”

Though you weren't exactly expecting an immediate response, you still felt a little disappointed to not hear something right away. Still, being impatient never really did anyone any good, so you wait patiently for something, anything to happen.

Just when you think calling out again, you hear some rustling in the brush nearby. Doing your best to turn your head around, you see a fluffy little bunny hop out, and tilt its little bunny head at you.

“Oh! Hello there! I don't suppose you would be able to-” you begin to say, only to stop when the little bunny turns and hops back into the brush. “...oh dear.”

Though it didn't seem to be running in fear, you nevertheless wonder if you had somehow frightened the poor little thing.

Maybe it had gone off to get help? You could only hope so, as the alternatives were things you dared not consider. Even so, it could have at least said something.

But it didn't, and so you were once again left alone, and still in quite a pickle.

[ ] Wait patiently, the bunny will come back for you. You're sure it will!

>>195691I am both impressed and slightly disturbed that you would bother to screencap that. Kudos for that.

That said, I would like to point out that, aside from being made half in jest, I made that comment five years ago, and at the time I had no inkling this thing would still be going half a decade later.

>>195700Unfortunately, if I were to do something for this latest contest, and I will neither confirm nor deny that I am at this point, it can't be that be that, since you would know I was the one doing it.

It kinda defeats the purpose of entering anonymously if you know which entry is mine.

You decided you should rethink your options. Maybe there was something you were forgetting?

Well, of course there was something you were forgetting, but not everything you may have forgotten was as likely to be useful with your current problem.

You remembered you can fly, but also that flying doesn't work when most of your body is being held down by something, like a bunch of gooey muck.

Magic? You don't think there's any sort of spell you know of that could be helpful. Maybe a potion or two, but nothing you could whip up on the spot with no ingredients prepared.

Nope! You can't think of anything!

Despite that, you don't feel too bad, for some reason. It never does much good to let yourself get down in the dumps anyway, but even you can't deny that you're taking this whole thing better than others might.

That's fine, though! That just means that, deep down, you know that everything is going to be okay! No matter how dark things get, the sun will always come up tomorrow, and all of that stuff!

Still, you can't help but feel a little worried about where Sokrates went off to. He's so good about staying out of trouble, and you wouldn't expect him to get lost, so you could only hope that-

“Mreow.”

“Sokrates!” you call out to the little kitty poking his head out of a nearby bush.

“Mreow?”

“What do you mean 'where have I been'? Where have you been?”

“Mreow!”

“Huh? You were looking for help? Oh, you sweet little-”

Suddenly, a strangely-dressed young man pops out of the top of the bush, interrupting you with an extremely loud “HELLO!”

“Um, Sokrates? It's nice that you tried to find someone to help, but...” you trail off, unsure of how to put what you want to say into words. You have no doubts that he tried his very best, and you love the little fluffkins for it, but this seems a little on the opposite end of what you would call 'helpful'.

“Mreow!”

“Huh? You didn't find him?”

“Mrew!”

“He just started following you?”

“Rerow.”

“Sokrates! That's not very nice!” you scold him, even if you did find it hard to disagree with him.

This strange fellow, whoever or whatever he may be, struck you as more than a little 'unstable'. You're not sure if you would go so far as to say he was dangerous, but it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to tread lightly.

“Um, Mister? Hello?” you call out to the young man, still THWACKing his head against the tree, over and over. “Sir?”

Having apparently heard you, the man suddenly stops and turns towards you, a faint line of red trickling down his face. “Yes? Hello!”

“Um, hello,” you reply, doing your best to choose your words carefully. “Is everything, um, I mean, are you alright?'

“Huh?”

“Your head,” you say, motioning towards him. “You look like you hurt it a little bit.”

“Oh, this?” he says, putting a hand to his head. Rubbing it a couple times, he brings his hand down and looks at his now red-stained fingertips. “Oh, yeah. This. This is fine. It's not as bad as it looks. Really. The voices just got a little-” The man suddenly freezes, his eyes widening.

“Um, voices?”

“N-nothing! It's nothing!” he answers, glancing around himself nervously.

The man's expression brightens. “Yeah! Yeah! Help! I can help you! If you, um, need it! Help! I can, um, I can do that! Do you, um, need help? Because, well, you look like you do, but I don't want to presume, and so, um... do you?”

>>196864My apologies, but life over the past several weeks has, to be blunt, totally sucked balls. And not just one set of balls, oh no. A series of balls, one set after another, each one sucked harder than the last. Life has been practically gorging itself at an "all you can eat" ball-suck buffet.

Thankfully, things have finally begun to turn around. Much of the bad stuff has either passed or is improving, albeit slowly, and the few things that aren't or won't are the sorts of things I would never expect to get better anyway. Some things in the world simply suck, and there will never be a time in which they do not suck.

That said, writing is not likely to resume for a little while, still. Not for a week, at least. Sorry.